Mirra edges Boxford's Eckert in 2nd Essex state rep race

Wendall Waters wwaters@wickedlocal.com @ttranscript

Wednesday

Nov 7, 2018 at 9:56 AMNov 7, 2018 at 3:10 PM

State Rep. Lenny Mirra edged by Christina Eckert to retain his 2nd Essex District House seat. Mirra, who won by only a few hundred votes, said this morning that he was ecstatic, but he also noted Eckert’s campaign caught him a little off guard.

State Rep. Lenny Mirra edged by Christina Eckert to retain his 2nd Essex District House seat. Mirra, who won by only a few hundred votes, said this morning that he was ecstatic, but he also noted Eckert’s campaign caught him a little off guard.

“She was very gracious, very professional,” he said of Eckert, “and I told her she ran what was probably the best campaign I had ever seen in my life. We had our work cut out for us."

Mirra said he had been worried about how the vote would go in Boxford.

“That’s a solidly Republican town, but it’s her hometown, and we were lucky to keep it close,” he said.

Eckert garnered 1,532 votes to Mirra’s 1,366 in Boxford.

Not only is Eckert very popular in Boxford, Mirra said, but she is also very accomplished and has done a lot of community work. On top of that, he said, his campaign was volunteer run.

“I didn’t hire a single person, and it almost cost me the election,” he said. “We kind of took it too easily, we did, and she ran a firecracker, just the best campaign I’d ever seen.”

Eckert this morning said, “I’m proud of my campaign. I’m proud of the people who worked so hard with me, my campaign manager and all the volunteers. We ran a very civil campaign.”

Her first campaign promise, she said, had been to keep it civil.

When asked what her next step will be, Eckert said, “Not sure. It’s a big mystery, but we’ll figure it out.”

With a laugh, she said, “All I want to do is get my lawn signs put away so people don’t have to look at those anymore.”

Mirra said Eckert was able to capitalize on anti-Trump sentiment, of which there was a lot on the campaign trail. He said that when he was out knocking on doors, he heard people say over and over again that because of Trump, they just couldn’t vote Republican. He said even when he made it clear he did not vote for Trump, it didn’t matter.

In the end, what issues worked in his favor? In the small towns in his district, Mirra said, many voters want to maintain balance on Beacon Hill and they believe in lower taxes and Second Amendment rights.

“They see me as someone who will preserve those things,” he said.

When asked what he will do next, now that the election is over, Mirra said, “Get back to the people’s work. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

He said he’s very optimistic about the work being done with his bipartisan gun violence working group.

In conceding the race, Eckert posted to Facebook last night, “I want to congratulate Representative Lenny Mirra for his victory in the race for State Representative. Tonight, we lost a very close race, but I am not discouraged. I will continue serving my community and doing what I can to help our district. Throughout this race, I have met so many wonderful people. To our volunteers who worked tirelessly, thank you for all of your hard work and encouragement. This was an incredible ride, we fought the good fight. Thank you all! #TeamEckert.”